Sunday

Panic Poems (2003)

Most of my neighbours have come here for freedom and peace. No human community, however, can fully permit either of these qualities, and limits access to them. Even here, in such a remote community as this, we have to adjust to the proximity of other peoples' dogs, machinery , use of water, fire, noise, and all this amidst our own struggles for survival against the eccentricities of an infringing wilderness.

These poems arose from my own adjustments to life in a very small isolated community, in which I've now lived for six years. In spite of these trials recorded here, I wouldn't leave it for anything.

As Yeats said:To have too many reasonsis to be not quite well-born
And there’s the sharper point —
that to explain myself
is to bore

I’ll live on amiably
me and my dog

shall mow the lawns
as proof of life
paint the house
for responsibility
grow a bit of pot
to be one of the boys

get some mail
have a visitor or two
for the connection

lest it be thought
that my existence
is not as others are

my generation
spontaneous

You must have antecedents and connections, be traceable, else they’ll think you’re out of Auckland, which is almost as unpleasant as the old belief that life bred spontaneously from dung-heaps. Aucklanders know neither fire nor weather, and are useless for anything but driving on motorways and making a certain type of money.

My liver must be spongiform
memory lost in the shorter term
there must be aches and pains
from nights spent drunk in
in the blackberry

Halt and weary I must be
as I answer the knock
at the door

lest I condemn my neighbours

It must be clear
to all who call
that I who live here
am of the earth
we live in

When you are an older-type person you must appear to show your age, else those who are younger, and who for reason of self-indulgence are not so fit, will take your exuberance as a staged and personal reflection upon them.

I, to avoid such suspicion, frequently and tactfully insinuate both the shortness of my days and of my breath, and hint at maladies more threatening than my neighbours’.

There is an ironic reasonableness in the concept of angels. Somewhere, in the whole vastness of space, and in the infinite complexity of space-time continua, the is a community of beings who will accept me.

They needn’t love me like me nor know me, but at least they will let me join, with no suspicion that I be from Auckland.

I tell myself again and again —
it’s my life
I’ve made it
and they are adult too
in theirs

But I’m drawnby the sweet scent of victimhood
Need of returnfor those nurturing years

The thought that one might have lived in vain is a hard one; that the children don’t need you, that your friends are more inclined to forget you, and that you’ve only your feet to stand on, is unwelcome.

It’s no use complaining — WINZ might hear of it and give you a job, even if you’re on Super.

A ditch on one side
a bog on the other —It’s a narrow path that takes methrough a dark place
I’ve spent too much on food
and don’t know what to do

From fear of running out
and in case of guests

There’s nowhere to store
some’s in the garage
and I can’t eat more
ofsweetcakemademeats
chocolate has limits
and spirits

though they tempt with comfort
when the telephone doesn’t ring for days
and no-one comes to the door

I must eat plain
I say to myself

I must live that too
me and my dog

If you choose to live on the top of a hill, only those who can climb will call,

except for the meter-reader, one or two who are lost, a curious friend, and those who want a loan of your trailer .

You need to look after yourself: buy another fridge for comfort food and put it in the garage. Equip the home with nicely-judged prosthetic devices like SKY, a cookery book, and effective cleaning devices.

I want to be my own
though the physical is lovely
and its want tedious

With women I am kind
in a conquering way
to signal the familiar

lest I be despised by my neighbours
suspected of that fearful flaw
that puts a man
outside

To have the neighbours’ trust you must have a partner of the opposite sex, or - at the very least - give an impression that you could have one if you tried. A fact-based bias against the opposite sex will work only for a time.

If you haven’t, no-one will come; there’ll be nothing to talk about and they’ll misunderstand you when there’s trouble.

Even at the surgery, dentist and doctor will be indefinite, and if you push too far your name will vanish from significant data-bases.

This you might think advantageous but, once again, will cause trouble when there’s trouble.

The cake tastes of shampoo
and I have to eat it all
but that doesn’t matter
it’s not nourishing

Keep things in their categories
and all is clear

It makes for wisdom

to interpret the inscrutable
as it must be faced

She’s not coming over after all —
troubles have stopped her

my bed is forlorn
its rituals aborted

What do I do with my masculine intent?

Go outside and polish up the truck
clean the spouting
repile the shed

delay is just for a month or two
then her peace returns

Walk around with the chain-saw and big bootsPut each step deliberately down upon the earth hard, to say It’s mine and I’ll rule it as a man should,as I would if she were herewhich is probably why she’s not.

It must be hard for the earth to be ruled levelled ploughed and fertilised. Better for the doer than to be done by.

There’s no further use for you —
you’re costing too much
and make worry

It’s time —unlessof course
the Director has a job for you
one no-body’s thought of

like saving The Planet
(he doesn’t say which)

No such luck
you’re done
you’re off
and you’ve left your spleen
(the body part you valued)
to posterity

You have to leave something for the children; they’ve inherited your will already. Attitudes aren’t welcome, so leave some words, guidance ones, a story or two, a pithy epithet, or something they can quarrel with and thereby keep the peace. You can rule by division, even from the grave.

One idea’s as good as any other
no time nor deed more valued
than another

not life
nor death

Strength has uses
consciousness none

and we are the majority

Have mercy

On people like us, who live at a bad address,that the district council would like to suppress,who’s people often forget the law,who haven’t much money and don’t want to have much,who, if we had influence, wouldn’t know what to do with it,who are too pushed to know what an accomplishment is,

Neville had a leak at his header tank
so no water was crossing the creek

Debbie and the girls and me dried out
and Jimmie and Eva
Pete and Mike and Dinah
Henry too

Someone muscled in on things
and didn’t do it well

The IRD sent another demand

It rained when I sprayed the moss

Al wanted more for the fridge
than he paid at the first

It was all these things put together

Then
when we played
at the end of the day
he nipped me

But it’s me that should have been
kicked in the butt
and shut in the shed
to shiver

The shed’s a place to shiver in. You can close your mind and centre on the labour of repentance, the dusk and dirty windows, spider-webs, old tools, rubbish round the edges and memorabilia, half attempts at things, forgotten causes, samples of bad workmanship.

The rest of the world is a dangerous place
and you don’t know where
it’ll hit from

I stay put
for safety
but

people say things
that don’t matter
so why do they say them

That’s what hurts —
the motives
not the words

What have I said
what have I done
to provoke

Memories and imagined scenes
crowd and jostle
in my mind
for reasons causes facts
to justify

They make me fret
and be outcast
until time
or a happy chance
brings confidence again

Gardening’s the worst, amongst the strawberries, pulling out euphorbia and twitch; it lets memories in, of things said and done by me or by others to me, embarrassments I want to forget, that no-one with sense would think of. I want to hide until I feel shameless.

I must accept that fear and chance and sentiment may sometimes be too much for me.

And other vaguer presences
like the time it snowed
when I wanted it to snow

But mostly it doesn’t

I get up in the morning
and it’s dull

It’s cold, I light the fire
and it clears

Or it’s fine, so I paint the house
but it rains

Life should prefigure itself
in shadows, hints
rhetorical gestures that
we recognise

a message in the sunset
sequences we know

It would save a lot of money
make it surer with the wash
but mostly
it would set my mind at rest

I wouldn’t need to worry much
and stuff like that

If life could be like the compliance officers of our Regional Council, who ring up offenders before they visit them — just a message a token a hint — something to say ‘we’re going to happen’, and if it could be written into the constitution, so to speak, to take out surprise and put in prediction; it would save on health, the police, and capitalism generally.

If you didn’t know yesterday
you can’t tell today
and have to turn to the media
for the formality

It matters most
to the rest of the world
and not much here

We don’t much care
except for appointments
and programmes on TV

Though it would be a help
if the seven days
had signatures

colours perhaps
or songs
or each to one own sin —

venal, of course
not deadly

That’s the trouble with time, it doesn’t define itself to be easily read; we have to do that, make special days like Christmas, mark the seasons, make history, and be self-conscious about night and day, or else we would be like the animals who don’t know death.

It’s the Day of Rest
and we sleep in
each quiet as a baby after breakfast

Even the birds
are somewhere else
and motorbikes are mute

But rest from what?

We did little last week
and have no plans
for the week ahead

We don’t make plans
if the present’s right

and we don’t do
in case we do wrong

We let each day
look after itself
and the chores too

We don’t do mornings
very much either

But on Sundays especially
we doze on

because it’s good
to keep in step
with the world

Which is over the cliff by the sea at the end of the road, and is not much wanted by us much of the time, except for entertainment and necessities, but we didn’t come here for necessities, and can do without a lot of the time, until we get nostalgic, and think it would be nice to have the rubbish collected.

All things being equal
on a morning like this
I should go to see Rick
about the moths that eat the broccoli

and go on to see John
about how he’s placed his tank
(I’ll have to do the same myself
sooner or later)

or call on Nev
about the rust in my truck

Then there’s Dinah and her house
(she’s away)

Jim and Eva
(they’re not well)

Debbie and the leaking pipe

and the blasted mid-town water supply

But they’re not
and I don’t care if it is

Today I’m myself
with book pen and paper
water and tree
the dog in the sun
and not a word said
to anyone

You have to ask yourself: if you stand on your own feet, will they carry you? Because of the prevalence of showers, most people have bad feet. They don’t see them in the shower because they’re standing on them, and toes go wild without their knowing.

The bed is like television —it leaves me with the feeling that I don’t get enough out of it. Like life itself it’s always there, but is not used well enough. I don’t remember what I did when I was in it asleep. Warmth, comfort, security, and the other good things of dreaming sleep, aren’t sufficiently savoured.

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About the Editor

I've published five poetry collections: City of Strange Brunettes (1998), Chantal’s Book (2002), To Terezín (2007), Celanie (2012), and A Clearer View of the Hinterland (2014), as well as six books of fiction, most recently Kingdom of Alt (2010). I work as a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Massey University (ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3988-3926).